JorgeDavid

I really really enjoyed this reading! I also loved the little sample piece you composed for showing the technique! I have observed two mistakes in the URL links: The second link Tintinnabuli (II) redirects me to the first section Tintinnabuli (I). After section V there is only a section VII. Not sure if the section VII is supposed to be the VI, or if you have an extra section VI that you forgot to upload. Thank you so much for sharing this!

Thank you so much, @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu! I am really glad you enjoyed this string quartet arrangement! 😄 Thanks for listening and commenting!

Thank you so much for listening and commenting @PeterthePapercomPoser! I am really glad you liked it! You are right, the F chord was notated really badly! Since I might have to re-record everything soon I transcribed the audio into a sheet score today (I had not written it down and I was starting to forget the notes so I wrote it down for not forgetting them 😅) and I needed to notate the chords in the score too, since there is an improvised section. So I corrected that F chord into an Fmaj13(#11). Thank you for letting me know! You are right, the main reason I used the synth pad was because the string sounds are really really bad in my digital piano. I have a Yamaha P-515, which I really love but, among one of its cons, is the fact that there are not many midi sounds available and most of them are quite bad. Since synth sounds are normally okay in any keyboard I selected those. However, the short film is set in an industrial neighborhood of a large modern city, so the synth sound does not sound too bad in the context. Yes, I played all of this by myself. But it is not particularly hard to play. The main problem were the slides because I had not played guitar for a long long time so the "hard-skin" of my left-hand fingers is totally gone and they did hurt quite a lot. In general the fingers from the left hand were hurting for the whole time 😅 As when I play piano, I tried to compensate the lack of technical virtuosity with expressive playing but in many places I made mistakes :S. Also there was an improvised part and I am not good at improvising so you can tell I am doubting a lot while playing that section. If I re-record it I will try to play it exactly the same but without mistakes or doubtful notes! Thank you so much for commenting!

Thank you so much for listening and commenting, @panta rei! I am really glad you enjoyed the piece! Thank you for the suggestions too! Many people are noting the accented half-notes so I will probably modify that in future revisions. Some people, like you, have also commented about the pizzicato notes so I am also considering turning those into a soft arco note. Yes, I also like the piece as it is but it's true the I feel a little bit bad about the piece being so short. Also, as you commented, having a second section before the restatement of the main theme would show the main theme a different light, more melancholic thanks to the contrast. I really like this theme so the possibility of making fresh like that is one of the main reasons I would like to expand it. These days I am writing down some ideas and melodies that might work for a second part and will test them as soon as I have time to compose! Thank you so much for the comment!

Hello everyone, A friend of mine has made a short film and asked me to try to make some music for the last scene and the credits. He wanted it all played with real instruments so I had to work with what I had, a cheap classical guitar and an digital piano. It is my first time composing in such a style and with real instruments (I mixed it all in Reaper). The instruments are: 2 classical guitars, piano, electronic dark pad, electric bass (the electric bass is also played in the piano). The piece is based on a 8-bar harmonic progression which could be understood as: Amin9(no5) - Amin9(no5) - Amin9(no5) - Amin9(no5) - Fmaj13(#11) - E7 - Fmaj13(#11) - E7/G#. At 1:30 the credits start so there is change in texture and the melody becomes improvised before playing the main theme once more and then the ending of the chord progression at the same time that the credits are ending. The piece is called "The Heaviest Burden", a reference to Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", since the last scene of the short film reminds me to the ideas found in that book. The piece is supposed to be melancholic/nostalgic but with a little bit of hope. I recorded the guitars with my mobile phone and the rest directly from the digital piano sound exporting function. Really cheap guitar with years-old strings and no nails in my fingers so the sound is really dark and hollow. It all sounded as a toy at first but I think the reverb made a really impressive job for making everything sound better. Also, I learned how to reduce noise and, in general, I think it turned out quite okay. Any feedback about the piece is more than welcome! Thank you!

Thank you so much @Rich, I really appreciate the nice words! I was not considering expanding it (I am always reticent to expand works as I am afraid of making them worse). However, this is becoming my favorite piece the more I listen to it so I am considering turning it into a large ternary form. Adding a contrasting binary/ternary theme in the major mode or maybe the VIb and then repeating this section (but shorter). However, I feel it is still above my level so probably I will take it slow and try to come up with a continuation and compose it without rushing. I hope I can make it some day! I did not know Janacek but I listened to his "Idyll" while working today and I really enjoyed it! I will give it a listen again one of this days, it had quite some beautiful moments. I really like your suggestion and I agree it would probably sound better. That said, the midi file plays the accent too loud so in a real performance it would probably sound softer (but still loud, though). Maybe you are right and it is probably better having a softer more dissonant chord. I will give it a try in the future to see if I find something that I like and does not disrupt the lyrical flow. Thank you so much for your comment!

I agree, I never tough about piece titles too much but now I feel that it is important to consider what the titles will mean for other people and the expectations for the piece they might have depending on the it. Learning extended harmonies is one of the things I want to do the most. I have been studying (slowly) some Jazz harmony and Neo-Riemannian theories but I am still far from been able to apply them to my pieces. I also feel I can only apply sounds that I have also encounter in other real pieces by composers (I am not able to just apply theories if I have not experienced those particular sounds by myself) so the process of learning is slow. This is, for now, my most harmonically adventurous piece but I expect to slowly get more modern sounds as I keep practicing! Thanks for the comments!

Thanks @Kvothe, I am glad you enjoyed it! Yes, one of the things I wanted to do is arrange the melody for all the different instruments at least for a few bars, and to have accompaniment that was not always below the melody (since this is something I am not particularly good at). I feel it is hard, especially when using midi sounds in which the lack of proper dynamics can make the top notes overpower everything, but I think it worked well for this piece! I can agree, since now it does not sound so good. I know I want that note there, either pizzicato or "arco", but in any case, I want it soft. I think I prefer the pizzicato but the software sound plays it too strong and, as you say, it feels a little sudden. In my mind, a really "ppp" pizzicato would sound okay, but I am not totally sure yet. I am still testing that note deciding on what to do with it, but for now I left the pizzicato, although I tried to make it a little softer (but the software sounds seem to have some volume limitation and "pppp", "ppp", "pp"... all sound the same 😅) Many people have pointed out that the title "Minuet" is a little misleading so I decided to change it to "Romance", which I think is a form that fits much better the tempo, lyrical character and mood of the piece. Thank you so much for listening and commenting!

Thank you so much for your comment @Some Guy That writes Music! I am really glad you gave those appreciations since one of the things I have been focusing on lately is trying to make my music seem more "simple" by stripping the music out of too many unnecessary notes. I used to overload my music with notes, which I do not think is bad in itself, but I think many times I did it unconsciously for concealing lack of harmonic interest. I have been trying to go back to the basics by playing simple pieces on piano and a little bit of figure bass in order to slowly acquire a better grasp in harmony (so later, if I use many notes, I will know it is not out of lack of harmonic skills). Thank you so much for listening and commenting!

EDIT: Changed the name of the piece from "Sentimental Minuet" to "Romance" since I received feedback from several people that the piece was indeed too slow and the "minuet" label was misleading. I believe "Romance/Romanza" fits the style of the composition much better. Hello everyone, I upload here the arrangement for String Quartet I made of my "Sentimental Minuet for Piano". It was originally a saxophone quartet but I realized the melody was always played by the top instrument and it felt repetitive. I tried rearranging the saxophone quartet but it became too hard. Since I understand string instruments a little better I turned it into a string quartet to be able to arrange something less repetitive with the melody going through all the different instruments. Any feedback about the arrangement or the composition itself is more than welcome! Thank you and hope you enjoy it! ------- Original Piano Piece -----------

Thank you @Luis Hernández, it really means a lot coming from you. I was quite worried about the chromatic harmonies since sometimes I have troubles when trying to use more adventurous harmonies so I am glad that in this piece it kind of worked out well!

I totally agree. I became interested as soon as I learned a little bit about the main concept behind it about the understanding of how chords are connected through voice leading based on "number of voices moving" and "number of total steps", and how it applies to connecting chords that seem to be, otherwise, unrelated to each other. I am glad to know that you think it is a really useful tool to have! However, it was quite "theory-intensive" so that is why I had to put it aside for some time. As soon as I have some vacation I should spend a few weeks focusing on learning it!

Thank you so much for listening and commenting @Luis Hernández! I actually found out an important mistake thanks to your comment. I am not sure if you listened to the saxophone quartet or the piano version, but I realized in the piano version there was a mistake in m.6. The jump you talk about needs to be to C and in m.6 of the piano version it was accidentally written as D (and played with the midi). If you listened to the Saxophone version then you listened to the correct sound but still you helped me find about the error, thanks! Besides the mistake I also modified the counterpoint in every repetition of the main theme (since the theme was repeated three times I wanted to have different counterpoint for each case). Yes, I am having troubles with the midi crescendos for saxophones and piano, the changes of volume between "mf" and "f" are too large... I tried to fix to make it a little smoother. In any case, my plan is to practice it at the piano and update it with a score video of the piano version played by myself (of course that will probably take some time 😅). Thank you so much for commenting!

I really enjoyed it very much! Specially the beginning and the part starting in 2:17 where you changed the texture for a little bit and the nice tremolo at the ending for going back to the previous texture. I am also really interested in neo-Riemannian theory and I bought a book called "audacious euphony" that is supposed to be really good for learning it, but I still could not start studying it. Your videos are always particularly helpful because you even write the chords so they can be used as learning material as well! Nice piece!

Thank you so much for listening and commenting @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu! The feedback was really helpful! I had my doubts about those two measures as I tried several solutions and none of them satisfied me, so in the end I just kept on the countermelody without moving the bass. But thanks to your feedback I revised those two measures. Now I move the bass to outline an augmented chord in b.10, and to smooth the transition from the second inversion minor chord to its first inversion major chord in b.12. I think it works better now! Thank you so much!